The BlackBerry Q10 is the flagship BlackBerry phone with a physical keyboard. It offers a similar BlackBerry 10 experience to its touchscreen cousin the BlackBerry Z10, but looks and feels much more like a traditional BlackBerry handset. As such it should prove popular with long-term BlackBerry users. But how does it stack up against other high-end smartphones? We borrowed our BlackBerry Q10 from Phones4u.co.uk

BlackBerry Q10: build and design

The Q10 is a small and light device, relatively thick for a modern phone, weighing in at around 140g and measuring just 119.6x66.8mm, but a relatively fat 11mm thick. Available in white or black it is principally constructed of plastic, with a silver metal trim. The front of the BlackBerry Q10 is dominated by the screen at the top, and the physical qwerty keyboard at the bottom. At the very top is the BlackBerry logo, as well as a speaker and the front-facing camera lens.

Taking a look at the Q10's silvery edges, around the lefthand side you find USB ports, and on the right are the volume rockers. At the top is the 3.5mm jack and on/off button and down the bottom we find a speaker. Which takes us to the back of the BlackBerry Q10. This comprises two panels of textured plastic. The BlackBerry dots are detailed in silver metal in the middle, and at the top, above a slim silver band, is the rear facing camera lens and flash.

The overall feel is of quality and a certain ability to withstand the rigours of modern smartphone use. The Q10 is relatively small and squat, and this gives a feeling not of elegance but of strength. And as your BlackBerry is likely to be a workhorse this is important. We carried around the Q10 for a few days in our key- and coin-filled pockets, and found not a scratch on it.

BlackBerry Q10: UK price

Although it lists for £579 inc VAT, the Q10 costs around £500 inc VAT on pay as you go. That puts it in the upper echelon of smartphones, especially those with 16GB storage. The 16GB iPhone 5 is £529, after all. For me that's a problem, as this phone doesn't have the same premium build or performance of the iPhone, the HTC One, Sony Xperia Z, Samsung Galaxy S4 and the rest. And you don't get the advantages of Android or iOS. But that may be the point: the Q10 is a business-focussed tool and it may be that your employer is footing that hefty bill. See also: BlackBerry 10 Price in UK: Q10 & Z10.

BlackBerry Q10: specs and performance

In our tests of other BlackBerry 10 phones, we found the OS stable and responsive. And that is certainly the case here. The Q10 is reasonably snappy in use, although we found at times that we had to wait a split second for animated transitions to play out. But under no circumstances would you call it a slow phone. Inside is packed a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor with 1.5 GHz dual-core CPU and a mighty 2GB of RAM. You get 16GB of Flash storage as well as the ability to add another 32GB more via MicroSD card. On our test model 4.4GB was in use before we installed any software or media.

In our GeekBench 2 synthetic benchmark test the Blackberry Q10 produced average results of 1720 points. This compares well with the Z10's average score of 1709 (it's the same result, in essence). But given the top-of-the-market aspirations of both these high-end BlackBerries we might have hoped for something closer to the HTC One's 2721 points or the Galaxy S4's frankly unbelievable 3,000+ score. You can't argue too much with a phone that is measurably faster than the iPhone 5 (1650 points), but for £500 or so you would expect exactly that.

The good news here is that battery life is well taken care of with a 2100mAH removable battery, that's a bigger battery than that of the Z10, which itself has a bigger display with will suck out battery life. We managed to get comfortably more than a day of use out of the Q10 without having to charge it, even if we weren't quite able to run it for two days as BlackBerry claims.

There is no further good news in the Sunspider javascript test, however. This test measures speed of javascript rendering and is a good bellweather for all round web-browsing performance. The Q10's average score of 2855ms is no more than, well, average. The iPhone 5S's 903ms is much faster, for instance.

Overall then the Q10 is a curate's egg, performance wise. It's certainly no slouch, but for £500 we might have expected more. See also: best BlackBerry phone in 2013.

BlackBerry Q10: display and keyboard

In order to have a physical keyboard, you have to sacrifice screen real-estate. But the Q10's 3.1in display is far from the smallest we've seen. And it looks good: a 720x720 resolution means a pixel density of 330ppi, noticably sharper than previous qwerty keyboard BlackBerries. It's a 24-bit colour depth Super AMOLED display so it is full of colour although to our eyes at least it seemed a little dark. It's possible this reflects BlackBerry 10's dark colours rather than the hardware. The touchscreen is responsive, too. The only real issue we had with this relatively small display is the 1:1 aspect ratio - if you can find any movie content in BlackBerry's media-light world, it's unlikely to look any good! Even photos seem strange at this aspect ratio.

The keyboard is, well, a BlackBerry keyboard. If you are used to using a physical keyboard on a BlackBerry you'll find it is a good one: there is a satisfying level of travel and clicked feedback in the keys, and they are of sufficient size for CrackBerry addicts to fire out a missive. A textured finish makes it easier to type in the dark.

Personally I don't know why anyone would choose a physical keyboard, especially given how good is the Z10's onscreen keyboard. So it's possible I may be missing some key points here. To me this is as comfortable to use as any qwerty keyboard on a smartphone. And it feels built to last. See also: Group test: What's the best budget smartphone for under £200?

BlackBerry Q10: BlackBerry 10

You can read our full BlackBerry 10 review here. But suffice to say that I personally like BlackBerry's latest operating system. The trouble is, not many people agree. Or rather, a lot of people strongly disagree. BlackBerry 10 is very different from both previous BlackBerry OSes and the other contenders: iOS, Android and Windows Phone. Yes it is a GUI that comprises a series of app tiles, but navigation is noticably unique. To see your email and social messages you swipe to the left from any Window. To reach a screen of all your open apps simply swipe up from the bottom of any screen. It sounds simple, and it is, but it takes a bit of getting used to. And if you're a long-time iOS or Android user this might cause you some pain. BlackBerry 10 shows just how closely aligned Android and iOS are, and as the odd one out it can be off putting.

But that doesn't mean it's a bad OS: far from it. BlackBerry 10 is fast and stable. It's also secure, and has the advantage of BesX: the free software that lets network admins remotely manage smartphones and remote email.

Indeed, the only big problem I have with BlackBerry 10 is the paucity of the BlackBerry World. I don't want to get into a pedantic argument about numbers of apps, or how many of the top 50 apps are available for BlackBerry (or how many of those apps are simply shortcuts to websites, mentioning no YouTubes). Instead I will say only this: like Windows Phone BlackBerry is very much a second citizen when it comes to apps and media. This may not be a problem: if the BlackBerry Q10 is your work email phone, for instance, you don't want it to be clogged up with movies and games. You want to preserve the battery life. Or perhaps you just don't care about apps on your phone.

But if the Q10 is going to be your only smartphone, and you do want to be able to access lots of top apps, music and movies, you may be disappointed.

BlackBerry Q10: Cameras

The Q10's main camera is 8Mp with an LED flash, BSI (back side illumination), a dedicated ISP (image signal processor) and a F2.2 lens. The rear camera can record video in up to Full HD 1080p quality.

So far our photos seem alright, but nothing more. You can select anywhere on the touchscreen to focus and then take a picture. The Q10 has a mind of its own with this method but fortunately you can use either volume button to operate the shutter. Here's a sample image from the Q10 (click to enlarge).

There are much higher quality cameras available on the market; the iPhone 5 and Nokia Lumia 920 are two that spring to mind.

The main show off feature of the Q10's camera is Time Shift. By taking numerous snaps in one go, you can adjust the whole image or individual elements like someone's face. It's a nice feature but don't be fooled into thinking it's new; the Nokia Lumia smartphones have a similar thing called Smart Shoot.

We like the editing software built in to BlackBerry 10 which allows you comprehensively edit and tweak your pictures. You can crop, rotate, adjust settings like white balance and add Instagram-style filters and borders.

BlackBerry's Q10 is filled with many creative features but its ultimate success will come down to one basic question: Do you want a qwerty device? I don't think the era of the qwerty is over, since I have met users who prefer a physical keyboard. But they are in the definite minority. What Q10 users will get with the new smartphone is a distinctive-looking device with a vivid display, an easy-to-use physical keyboard and touchscreen interface and an inventive approach to user security and management. In the most optimistic scenario, BlackBerry's Q10 sales will out-do its Z10 sales, which BlackBerry claims have gone well, critics notwithstanding. If BlackBerry can continue to attract developers to build more apps for BlackBerry World and if BlackBerry can propel its Messenger app into a fuller social networking experience, then there is some basis for believing BlackBerry has a solid long-term future, well above its current 5% global smartphone market share. Just about everything -- hardware to software -- in the Q10 (and the Z10) is good, but the market is crowded with great products that will make BlackBerry's marketing more vital than ever.

BlackBerry has finally launched its new operating system on its BlackBerry Z10 smartphone, but how does it compare to one of the most popular Android devices around? Read our Samsung Galaxy S3 vs BlackBerry Z10 comparison review to find out.

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Comments

Redmond Jennings said: Can it run Google Maps

Jimmys Kostakis said: ITS A SHIT PHONE GUYSIT CANT EVEN IDENTIFY THE CALLER

Mick said: I have had my Q10 for 4 months now What an awesome work tool it has been A far superior operating system compared to the Blackberry Bold I owned before My wife has a Galaxy which I use occasionally and I have an IPad Both these devices are excellent but with the Blackberry when emailing texting phoning I can move so much faster Also when emailing with the Blackberry it cleverly will pull up email addresses associated with a contact or subject and thereby allow me cc Or to those addresses if I so wish Also those email addresses are not in my contact address book the phone remembers them from emails sent to me I am dealing with approx 200 emails a day and I cannot stress enough that it is far superior than the Samsung or IPad for this even the email display colours are much easier on the eye Battery life is far better than the Galaxy which is useful when I am in back country in Remote areas To sum up as someone previously mentioned if you want to move quick and not waste time this is the device for you

hd said: run on sentence much

notbothered said: i own a q10 and i have issues in it such as the things u may not notice if you do not have lots of people and diffrent protocols ive got whatsapp and what not with lots of friends and families some dont receive my messages some receives and some i dont seem to see their messages and some i do see my tests was conducted after social conversations figuring out issues of not knowing and unknown circumstances other problems which is majorily over this is that things tend to hide and duplicate itself and after certain updates my sms history will dissapear bank transactions that i have kept in my sms is now all gone i even dismissed this as a major fact for the passion i have over blackberry just because i still can receive my bank logs through online banking others are certain crashes in certain apps such as Skype and fathkorooni a prayer calender and other issues are my mail accounts are acting all weird through the diffrent exchanges or war not i cant figure out why that my win8 and my bb10 have weird email synchronisation when my galaxy note2 is just fine

Creatively Lindsay said: From my experiences bootup is between 60-90 seconds I believe Ive only had to wait for a bootup on my Q10 when Ive accidentally let it die a couple of times so this is completely a non-issue to me That so called dreaded battery pull that owners of older BBs have experienced doesnt exist on BB10 phones certainly not with my Q10 Ive never needed to pull my battery for freezing or glitching or whatever For comparison though coming as a longtime Apple user if you let your iPhoneiPadiPod Touch die completely it typically needs to be charged until 5 before it boots up so with that said the few times Ive needed to boot up my Q10 are in marginally less time that on my iDevices

Creatively Lindsay said: I just dont agree with this so called expert verdict I have had the Q10 for 3 months and the experience really is incredible - the best phone Ive ever had It is such a brand new OS and I love it and even though the Z10 keyboard is the best virtual keyboard on the market there really is nothing like the physical keyboard I type SO much faster than on my iDevices Coming as an Apple person it took a few days for me to get used to the new BB10 user interface but honestly Im so used to the same UI from iPhone since 2007 that Im biased in that respect So obviously with any new piece of technology theres a learning curve Was it worth it to adopt the BB10 learning curve Absolutely After I had figured the UI out it quickly became second nature to me to the point that I now naturally use BB10 swipe gestures on my iPad all the time and get frustrated when it doesnt work I cannot stress enough how much more productive I am on my Q10 everything is just so much faster My ONLY downside to this phone is the app store not being as strong as Apples but besides that there is literally NOTHING that this phone cant do that the iPhone does Side note BlackBerry World really is getting much better with apps every few days it seems like they add more and more new amazing stuff so the actual rate that the apps come is extraordinary considering how BlackBerry World was only released in 2013 Im impressed with BlackBerry on that And I have Instagram and Snapchat and all that sideloaded on to my Q10 anyways Even the voice recognition on my Q10 is superior to Siri as its hands free so I use it while driving The built-in photo editing and TImeshift camera feature is amazingly useful to have especially if youre one with a busy house or moving kids andor pets All in all a fantastic phone and I HIGHLY recommend it

Matt Egan said: A nicely summed up description of your own experience which will be useful for those looking to purchase a smartphone Thanks for that Not sure why you had to have a pop at me though I review tech for a living and have used every high-end smartphone on the market I dont expect that other people wont have different opinions but I have given my opinion based on my experience and my market knowledge Theres no agenda thats it

mikeyd said: Just clicked a link that said q10 expert verdict mate you aint an expert Ive had this phone for two weeks and am already doing everything a lot quicker than I can on my I phone Sure its more of a work tool but its certainly in a class of its own Sure if you dont need a performance phone for multi tasking favour the z10 or an androidios if youre an app addict But these phones are bloody sweet once you learn how to use them efficiently

Timmy Bill said: Nice review I think you overstate the bootup time Is a minute and a half that big of a dealAnd if people have trouble understanding Balance then they should be fired It is a simple concept

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